A King`s Commander

swabbed and loaded anew.

'Aye, sir?'

'Go aft and bend on this month's private signal to identify us,' he suggested with a wink. 'Once we get around to the British side of this battle, I'd not like to be shot to ribbons in error by some overeager repeating frigate.'

'Aye, sir!' Spendlove chuckled.

The wind was dying away to nothing. Massive broadsides usually blasted air to stillness. And they were witness to one of the greatest sustained exchanges of massive firepower, even greater than any battle known so far in history. Jester was flagging once more, coasting along on her built-up momentum more than she was driving ahead close-hauled, hazed and half concealed in the sulphurous reeking mists that blew alee from that cannonading. The French frigate had come about to the starboard tack at last, but she was half-a-mile astern by then, though well up on Jester's starboard quarter.

'Mmm… Mister Ss,.. Spendlove's respects, sir,' Boy First-Class Josephs almost hiccuped below Lewrie's waist. And shivering frightful, as if he'd quiver every bone from his body. Five days at sea- less than a month in the Navy, and he was already under fire, wondering what had ever possessed him to go a gentleman volunteer, or wish a naval career! And still half terrified of his own captain!

'Aye, Mister Josephs?'

'Pp… private signal aloft, sir, he bb… bade me tell you.'

'Thankee, Mister Josephs,' Lewrie replied, looking down at him intently, his father's heart softening. Sewallis was just as twitchy, just as miserable-looking, half the time. 'Something to write home about, lad. To see a grand battle such as this'un. Perhaps the only one you'll ever see, your entire career! Now, d'ye understand why we start off harsh? So you end up the sort o' man'll stand such.'

'I think so, sir,' Josephs said with a gulp.

'Good lad,' Lewrie said, rewarding him with a smile.

It was going to be Buchanon's 'close shave,' around the stern of that Frog 74, after all. Perhaps by no more than a quarter-mile. He could ease her off the wind a bit and parallel her, but the frigate on his starboard quarter was still pursuing, bulldog game.

'Broadside guns'll no longer bear, sir!' Bittfield shouted up from the waist. The nine-pounders were sharply angled astern in the ports. Any more, and they'd snap their breeching ropes, sure.

'Cease fire, Mister Bittfield! Mister Rahl? Supervise carronades on the quarterdeck. They have a greater arc of fire.'

'Ja, zir!' Their emigrant Prussian barked, almost clicking his heels in glee to have some noisy toys to play with a bit longer.

And that frigate, Lewrie exulted to himself! She'll have to fall in almost astern of me, if she wishes to continue. She stays that high up on our quarter, we'll brush her off against the side of that last liner!

The frigate reopened fire, with her lighter forecastle chase guns. Five-or six-pound ball went sizzling across the quarterdeck.

'A little better shooting, at last,' Knolles commented.

'They're not the skillful shots their fathers were,' Lewrie agreed, with some relief.

'Bless me, sir,' Knolles scoffed. 'They're not the men they were two years ago!'

The starboard quarterdeck carronades belched fire, swathing them all in powder smoke for a period, before it was wafted away to the nor'east by the light winds, before Jester sailed past her own pall on the bruised air.

'Hit, I t'ink, herr kapitanl Jal' Rahl delighted, watching heavy ball strike and raise a gout of splinters, dust, and oakum.

On they stood, continuing their duel. The last French warship in the battle line was left astern, off Jester's starboard quarter. A run of five minutes more would give her sea room enough to come about and resume her original course of west-sou'west, with the entire Royal Navy a protective fence between her and danger.

Gunners aft, and the after-guard, began to jeer, as the French frigate was forced to haul her wind to avoid a collision with that last, limping 3rd Rate.

'Frigate, sir!' Hyde pointed out. 'One of our repeating frigates, four points off the starboard bows!'

'Acknowledging our private signal, sir!' Spendlove chimed in.

'Mister Knolles, you may secure from quarters, now,' Alan said with a great sigh of success. 'Safe in Mother's arms, from here on.'

'French frigate is wearing about, sir.'

Lewrie looked aft. Aye, she didn't have room in which to tack so she was swinging broadside on to Jester's stern, presenting them her starboard side, to make the greater twenty-four-point circle off the wind to end up heading west, plodding along in company with the other vessels of her fleet. Deprived of her prey. Beaten.

'Better luck next time, you snail-eatin' bastard!' Alan bellowed in triumph, cupping his hands so his words might carry. Though he doubted a shout across half-a-mile would register on French ears, it was, after all, the smug, insulting victor's jeer-and thought-that counted!

Uh… sorry I did that, he told himself at once!

The frigate, outsailed then outshot, spent a last fit of Gallic pique upon Jester, rippling out one final, irregular broadside. A crash aft and below, as a ball scored at last, caving in the transom timbers abaft the stores rooms and officers' quarters, a great thonk as the ball continued to carom down the length of the empty berth deck. Glass shattered as another exploded the larboard quarter-galleries-both Lewrie's, and the gun-room's-toilets. Splashes and feathers to either beam around the stern, and a further hollow thonk and high whine as a ball ploughed a furrow down Jester's side.

And Josephs, up on the bulwarks, was beheaded.

One instant cheering and waving a fist in the air, the next he was flying, his small body flung almost amidships of the quarterdeck, minus his head, throat, and shoulders, which had been pulped into red mist by six pounds of wailing iron!

'My… word!' Lieutenant Knolles gasped, as his compatriot on the bulwarks, his mate Rydell, hopped down and began shrieking utter horror, and terror. He'd escaped unscathed, though they'd been close enough to rub shoulders. Close enough, though, to be spattered with droplets of gore, brains, and bone chips!

'Surgeon's mate!' Lewrie shouted uselessly. 'Lob-lolly boys!'

Whey-faced himself, but determined not to show it, nor allow this horror to demoralize his crew, he was forced by duty to cross to Rydell.

'Shut your mouth, Mister Rydell! Stop that noise!' he rasped. 'Go below, if you wish to unman yourself. Lob- lolly boys? Get that… that, off the quarterdeck, at once!'

And turn his back, to deal with Duty.

'Oh, dear Jesus,' LeGoff whispered as he came up from the cockpit on the orlop, the place of surgery during quarters. 'Poor little chub!'

'Deal with it, Mister LeGoff,' Knolles ordered coolly, after he was over his own funk. 'Anyone else injured below, or aft?'

'No one, Mister Knolles, praise God,' Lewrie heard LeGoff say to the first officer. 'Here, you men. Scrap o' canvas. The carrying board. Take him below to the cockpit, and ready him for burial.'

'Mister Buchanon,' Lewrie inquired, his face a stony mask. 'I believe we have enough sea room to return to larboard tack?'

'Aye, sir,' the sailing master muttered, as shaken as anyone.

'Very well, then. Mister Knolles? Stations for Stays. Come about. New course, west-by-south, till we're well up to windward of our line-of-battle ships. Then we'll ease her due west, to parallel.'